1 Does parental education determine a child's non-cognitive skills? Evidence from a schooling reform Rose Atkins  , Alexander Turner  , Eleonora Fichera  , Matt Sutton   Health Organisation, Policy and Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. Email: rose.atkins@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk. 6.25 Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL  Health Organisation, Policy and Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. Email: alexander.turner@manchester.ac.uk  Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath, UK. Email: e.fichera@bath.ac.uk  Health Organisation, Policy and Economics, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK. Email: matt.sutton@manchester.ac.uk Rose Atkins is funded by the Medical Research Council Doctoral Training Programme ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of parental education on non-cognitive skills in childhood. We use data from the National Child Development Study to analyse aggregate and facet-specific measures of conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism. We exploit exogenous variation in parental education induced by a schooling reform which increased the minimum school leaving age from 14 to 15 years in England and Wales, in April 1947. We find that this reform increased the average years of schooling by 6.2- 6.9 months for mothers and 3.6-4.5 months for fathers. We find a one-year increase in mothers’ education increases a child’s aggregate conscientiousness by 0.32-0.45 standard deviations including the rigidity of the child by 0.40-0.83 standard deviations. Paternal education had no effect on aggregate non-cognitive skills but has a positive effect on a child’s obedience (0.50-1.30 standard deviations) and a positive effect on the extent to which a child fights (0.47-0.67 standard deviations). Key words: non-cognitive skills, determinants, parental education, school reforms